Yellow PostIt Note
by Merccy
Summary: “I can’t remember to forget you.” (GS)


**Title: **Yellow Post-It Note

**Author: **Mercury

**Rating: **PG for one swear word and some angst.

**Category: **Angst/drama.

**Summary: **"I can't remember to forget you."

**Author's Notes: **A response to the Elemental Challenge. Concrit is very much appreciated, as always. I don't own _CSI_, _The Godfather_, Counting Crows or _Memento_, which is where the summary line comes from. Enjoy!

-

**Caught some grief from a falling leaf **

**As she tumbled down to the dirty ground **

**Said I should have put her back there if I could . . . **

** - All My Friends, Counting Crows**

-

The Post-It note attached to the fridge was leaning to one side, and it reminded him of the little half-shrug he had forever associated with her name and face. The adhesive on the back of the paper was being to wear, as if someone had been placing it on the fridge and peeling it off frantically over and over. That he could see her doing -- standing by the island in the middle of the kitchen, gazing at the pen and little yellow paper in her hands. Staring at the bright patch in the middle of the refrigerator before taking it off, reconsidering, and placing it back on.

And then he could almost see her walking out of the apartment, a bag slung over her shoulder and another in her hand. All that was left of her now were fragments of memories. That and a lopsided Post-It note, with something he almost didn't want to read scrawled on it in her messy penmanship.

He had forgotten to turn on the light when he came in.

"Stop that." She said distractedly, one hand mindlessly clutching a purple Squeeze Ball as her fingers moved in and out of the colored foam. She was sitting in her study to the right of the kitchen, behind her desk.

"Sorry." He replied, turning away from her as she turned back to her stack of books. Curiosity got the better of him as he slowly turned back around again, watching her as she carefully scrutinized the pages of the thick books perched perilously on her knee, one hand keeping the book she was currently studying open, the other still squeezing the purple sphere. The endless motion of her fingers (in and out, in and out) gave the toy a lifelike appearance as her fingers transformed it into not a stress reliever but a beating heart.

She sighed. "I don't like being stared at, Griss."

The fingers casually tossed the ball away, and he watched it roll across the floor to the living room, where it stopped as it hit the sofa. The impressions her fingers had made where they pressed against the ball were gone as the ball lay motionless.

Drawing his eyes to the Post-It, he reached out his arm to take down the paper. Then he suddenly stopped, as if he would be breaking some secret rule she had by moving it. After all, she had put it there. And she obviously wanted it to stay there. He could take it down when she got back, if she didn't take it down before he did.

"What are you doing?" Her voice drew his eyes from across the room to the left of the kitchen -- the den -- to where she was kneeling on the couch, facing him. Lazily her arms swung across the back of the sofa, her eyes shining, her mouth curved upwards in a beautiful, wide grin.

He loved to see her smile. It was such a fragile smile, so easily destroyed that he wanted nothing more than to capture it like he did butterflies and insects, with his thin net, and preserve it in his mind forever.

"Just getting the popcorn." The timer beeped and he grabbed the bag, sitting next to her as she flopped forward and grabbed a handful. A strand of her hair flew in her face and he smiled, her joy infectious. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to preserve that picture of her forever -- only inches away from her grin, the perfect gap in between her teeth, the passion that constantly blazed in her eyes. And then she turned away to start the movie and the image was nothing more than a memory, one he knew could disappear or be altered by his own imagination any moment. _Please don't let my mind taint that image_. He didn't want to forget that picture of her or any of the other sensations already associated with her -- the way her hair smelled, the way she brushed her hair, the way her chest moved so rhythmically while she slept.

"Shit." She muttered, and his heart broke as her smile faded as quickly as it had come. "This disc is scratched."

"Oh well." Is all he could think of to say. "How about something else? Don't we have _The Godfather_ somewhere around here?"

To his surprise, she smiled again. "You can pull rank all you want, but I'm not putting that on. This is supposed to be a romantic evening."

To his further surprise, she concluded the sentence by kissing him.

Moving away from the couch, he returned to the fridge to get some wine for their romantic evening when the Post-It caught his eye. He looked past it into the study again, where she was entering, her eyes sunken and her cheeks pale in the dim lighting, half-consciously chewing on a protein bar.

"Surprise!" He called as her face lit up upon seeing him. "Happy Birthday." He continued, wanting ohsobadly to kiss her as her face gradually went from confused to amused to laughing.

Carefully he handed her a long package, which she meticulously opened one corner at a time. Soon the wrapping paper lay discarded in a colorful heap next to a wide piece of parchment with several Chinese characters painted on delicately.

"It's beautiful." She said softly, her eyes transfixed by the artwork. Slender vines wrapped themselves around the letters, vines that eventually blossomed into graceful flowers, their petals opening to the sky.

"That's 'Sara' in Chinese." He pointed at the letters.

The smile on her face was enough for him. On the paper she was still gazing at the painting as if expecting it to come to life, the thorny stems disappearing into smooth pink fairy wings. "I love it." She whispered to him.

A harsh, shrill ringing from the kitchen disrupted their embrace. "I'll let the machine get it." He whispered, wishing he could stay with his arms wrapped around her for the rest of his life.

When they broke apart he headed back to the kitchen to see who was calling as she tried to hang the gift above her desk, next to the plant he had sent her what seemed like ages ago.

The plant was beginning to wilt now, its leaves tinged with yellow and drooping. He tried to picture her watering it, feeling the leaves between her fingers and marveling at the idea of helping something already living, as opposed to what she was usually restricted to doing, but the image was blurry and distorted in his mind.

The gap between her teeth was too small or too big when he tried to conjure her face in his head, his mind automatically fixing all her flaws and making her into someone unrecognizable. He didn't want a stranger, he wanted Sara. And he didn't want these strange altercations of his memories, he wanted to be able to touch her, to kiss her, outside of his own mind.

"Griss?" Catherine's voice resounded in the dark, empty apartment as he remained rooted to the spot, staring at the Post-It. She paused before continuing, the answering machine giving her voice an unfamiliar, mechanical quality. "We wanted to see how you were holding up. If you need anything, anything at all you can call us. Or you can come visit. We're all trying to get by, Griss, you know that." She hesitated nervously. "Take care of yourself."

The Post-It lost its hold on the refrigerator door and fluttered to the ground, a solitary yellow butterfly in the dark apartment. Fluttering like her ashes had trembled in the air before the wind picked up and scattered his gap-toothed grin and the mischievous glint in her eyes to places he could never go to retrieve them. Fluttered like he imagined her heart had fluttered when that gun was thrust in her face, minutes after she had left him with the Post-It note as the only memento for him to remember her by.

It came to rest on the ground and stayed there for a long time, until he could bring himself to turn the Post-It face down and stare at the blank side instead.


End file.
